Plato was an influential Greek philosopher and founder of the Academy in Athens, one of the earliest institutions of higher learning in the Western world. He believed education should be designed to develop competent citizens and total development of individuals. Plato proposed a stagewise curriculum where different stages of life from ages 0-50 received different types and levels of education tailored to one's physical and mental development, such as play-based learning in early childhood and advanced subjects like science, mathematics, and dialectics in later stages. The goal was to educate citizens for the welfare of society and to become better human beings.